Australia 40-Year Outlook Names AI, Omits Crypto — SkimNews
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- Australian Treasury published the Intergenerational Report on Monday, naming AI as one of five major transitions expected to reshape the economy over 40 years, alongside geopolitical conflicts, an aging population, the shift to clean energy and an industrial shift toward services.
- The report described agentic AI systems as having become "significantly" more capable, autonomous and widely used — surpassing human-level performance on some benchmarks — while containing no mention of crypto or digital assets, a pattern carried over from previous Intergenerational Reports.
- Coinbase Australia country director John O'Loghlen said the report "completely misses the financial infrastructure those agents will need," citing Australia's existing Digital Asset Platform framework as having already provided "necessary regulatory clarity."
- The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased its focus on tokenized finance earlier this year, and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre estimated digital finance innovations could generate A$24 billion ($17.1 billion) in annual economic gains — figures the Intergenerational Report does not address.
- Treasury's separate Financial Innovation Strategy, released Sept. 3, does connect AI and financial infrastructure, noting that agentic systems could increase automated and machine-to-machine transactions and drive demand for real-time, interoperable and programmable payment systems.
- O'Loghlen called on Treasury to bring "the same focus" to the tokenized stored-value facility framework for stablecoins and to set clear rules for tokenized markets, calling those the "rails" on which agentic finance will run.
Why it matters: Australia's flagship 40-year economic forecast treats AI as a defining force but is silent on the tokenized payment and digital-asset infrastructure that the Treasury's own Financial Innovation Strategy and the Reserve Bank of Australia both identify as prerequisites for agentic finance. For the A$24 billion ($17.1 billion) annual digital-finance opportunity the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre flags, the omission means the country's most-cited long-term policy document offers no roadmap for the rails it expects to need.
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